On the engineering side of things we’ve also been very busy over the past year, and not to be outdone by the education team, we are ready to take the wraps off something special, this time aimed at business and industrial users.

What’s this little thing? Read on to find out.

From humble beginnings, the Raspberry Pi platform has grown and matured: the software is now full-featured and stable, and is still constantly improving thanks to the continuing hard work of our heroic community of volunteers; as well as targeted injections of funding to solve some specific issues. The Pi, and the Broadcom BCM2835 SoC at its heart, are also steadily becoming moreopen.

We love hearing about what users are doing with their Raspberry Pis, and are constantly amazed at the range of projects, as well as the inventiveness and creativeness of the community. We are also aware that there are a very significant number of users out there who are embedding the Raspberry Pi into systems and even commercial products. We think there needs to be a better way to allow people to get their hands on this great technology in a more flexible form factor, but still keep things at a sensible price.

Like proud parents, we want to free the core technology of the Raspberry Pi to go forth and become an integral part of new and exciting products and devices, and so today we are announcing the forthcoming Raspberry Pi Compute Module.

Compute Module on the left. What does it do? Read on to find out.

The compute module contains the guts of a Raspberry Pi (the BCM2835 processor and 512Mbyte of RAM) as well as a 4Gbyte eMMC Flash device (which is the equivalent of the SD card in the Pi). This is all integrated on to a small 67.6x30mm board which fits into a standard DDR2 SODIMM connector (the same type of connector as used for laptop memory*). The Flash memory is connected directly to the processor on the board, but the remaining processor interfaces are available to the user via the connector pins. You get the full flexibility of the BCM2835 SoC (which means that many more GPIOs and interfaces are available as compared to the Raspberry Pi), and designing the module into a custom system should be relatively straightforward as we’ve put all the tricky bits onto the module itself.

So what you are seeing here is a Raspberry Pi shrunk down to fit on a SODIMM with onboard memory, whose connectors you can customise for your own needs.

The Compute Module is primarily designed for those who are going to create their own PCB. However, we are also launching something called the Compute Module IO Board to help designers get started.

Empty IO Board on the left: Compute Module snapped into place on the right.

The Compute Module IO Board is a simple, open-source breakout board that you can plug a Compute Module into. It provides the necessary power to the module, and gives you the ability to program the module’s Flash memory, access the processor interfaces in a slightly more friendly fashion (pin headers and flexi connectors, much like the Pi) and provides the necessary HDMI and USB connectors so that you have an entire system that can boot Raspbian (or the OS of your choice). This board provides both a starting template for those who want to design with the Compute Module, and a quick way to start experimenting with the hardware and building and testing a system before going to the expense of fabricating a custom board.

IO Board

Initially, the Compute Module and IO Board will be available to buy together as the Raspberry Pi Compute Module Development Kit.

These kits will be available from RS and element14 some time in June. Shortly after that the Compute Module will be available to buy separately, with a unit cost of around $30 in batches of 100; you will also be able to buy them individually, but the price will be slightly higher. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a charity, and as with everything we make here, all profits are pushed straight back into educating kids in computing.

I’m sure people will be keen to get their design process started; initially we are releasing just the schematics for both the Compute Module and IO Board, but we will be adding plenty more documentation over the coming days and weeks.

Just to ask, will there be any RAM upgrade for that matter, or since it’s made this way, is there ever a chance we can add more RAM? (I’m just trying my luck since it doesn’t work that way on the Rpi board and this is just a different form factors :))

As the 512MByte of RAM is build into the CPU, it will not be posible to upgrade the amount of RAM on the board.
Maby you could upgrade the amount of flash memory (4Gbyte eMMC Flash) by replace the IC soldered on to the PCB-board.

A small(er) form factor pi with integrated memory? Why I am imagining somebody kickstating an interface to turn these into server blades for an AWESOME home server setup. You could have one as a DND server, one as your mail server, one to host a website etc.

I’m really oddly excited by that idea. What’s the power consumption of one of these lovely things?

>These kits will be available from RS and element14 some time in June. Shortly after that the Compute Module will be available to buy separately, with a unit cost of around $30 in batches of 100; you will also be able to buy them individually, but the price will be slightly higher

We MAY end up releasing them initially with an MOQ – given what the reaction today has been like (and bitter past experience – mention Feb 29 2012 to anyone round here and they start crying) it may be the best way to avoid being swamped with orders for the initial batch. We’ll see. The plan is to have them available individually, but that *might* not be the case right at the start.

A cloud computing server based on a batch of these is a mouth-watering prospect. It will be interesting to see if anyone comes up with a host motherboard that can accommodate, 25, 50, 100 of these in a single box, perhaps with an integral switch/load-balancer. Will knock the socks off the regular server mfrs and reduce computing costs dramatically.

I still remember my PDP-aa days when someone created a multiprocessor PDP-11 that made Digital’s next-gen VAX systems look like snails. Ah, those were the days…. :)

Actually that can be relatively easy – one can use intermediate strip boards that have USB ethernet chips and a 100BASE-TX switch (with a gigabit uplink) circuitry on it, and plugs into backpanes that have gigabit ethernet switch circuitry. The size of this board allow fitting 50+ of these into a 1U server chassis and filling up a whole 42U server rack with those makes a 2,100+ units. That gives a cluster of 2,100 CPUs and GPUs, ~1TB RAM and ~8TB nonvolatile storage. By organising cleverly this will make a cheap but powerful supercomputer.

A small(er) form factor pi with integrated memory? Why I am imagining somebody kickstarting an interface to turn these into server blades for an AWESOME home server setup. You could have one as a DNS server, one as your mail server, one to host a website etc.

I’m really oddly excited by that idea. What’s the power consumption of one of these lovely things?

That’s correct, but there’s much more IO, so you can add your own. The idea here is that it’s the barest minimum, so folks working on industrial applications can add the ports and extra connectivity they need.

Looks great. Solves so many of the issues that exist with Pi in it’s current form factor.
Going to be interesting to see what comes of it.
KiCAD & EAGLE libraries being the first key to implementation.

I don’t know if I would have bothered buying this because I thought it was going to be more expensive, but as I as going to get another pi anyway, and considering I would love to make a custom pcb… I want to buy one of these, all those GPIOs!

Excellent. I’d just want simultaneous stills. Stereo from a HAB will only work with something in the foreground, otherwise the cams would need to be 100m+ apart, but I’m sure that Babbage could be coaxed into that role :-)

I took note of the two camera ports as well. I’ve been trying to use a cheep usb stereo webcam, but RPi/ffmpeg doesn’t quite work. I can get a few seconds of side-by-side stereo to stream, but then it stops. Given the hw-optimization you have done with the RPi camera, I’d expect two of these could work.

Yes, that was originally what led me to try the 3D usb-webcam on the RPi. I don’t know enough about vdo processing to sync two streams, so I thought a 3D webcam with a single usb connector would keep the streams in sync. However, the cameras apparently connects as two separate devices.

But – did you ever locate the sw setup you used? I’m still interested :-)

This is a ffmpeg setup which almost works. With a Windows7 pc and my small 3Dcam it records for a few seconds and then freezes, so I’m not sure how good the sync is, but at least it produces a full-SBS picture

The ‘USB BOOT’ is to solve the problem of getting data onto the on-board Flash. Basically the module can read its boot code over USB as a slave – we have some software (that runs on – guess what – a Raspberry Pi!) that can act as a host and write the Flash using this method.

It is! I found that the evening before my first Pi flight, when I spent a while googling to see if anyone else had flown one already. That article was posted earlier the same day, and was the only thing I found aside from a couple of “I want to fly a Pi” posts.

VBAT is the voltage that goes to the on-board BCM2835 SMPS that generates the processor 1.2V core voltage. It can be powered from ~2.5-5V (various batteries will give you this including a single cell li-ion). No RTC but you can add your own!

Will there be a “model A” without the emmc? are SD pins brought to dimm pins? If one needs extra board anyway, adding SD sd slot would be easy. So why raising the price by (possibly too small) eMMC chip?

AWESOME: This is similar, from a concept point of view, to the TINI module that was available some years ago and Java based. Great to see the hardware moving along and being more flexible. As we saw with the original system I am sure that the community will find uses for this that are not yet imagined.

The USB is the only high speed data interface which the BCM2835 has. It has very high speed video ports (CSI and DSI) each can run ~1 GBITS/sec physically. However getting those to transport data is difficult and will not give you the full 1G bandwidth. But it is not impossible….

The single USB bus of the Raspberry Pi is a bandwidth choke point if you want to use a Pi as a NAS. With the extra I/O pins exposed by the Compute Module will it be possible to connect a gigabit ethernet controller and possibly some additional storage controller directly to the BCM2835? Can the ARM core in the BCM2835 handle higher speed peripherals?

Will reading or writing to the eMMC be any quicker than a class 10 SD card?
The schematic on the RS site does say how it connects to the BCM2835.
Is there anything on the expansion connectors that would alow USB to connected (I realise at extra hardware would be required).
Many opportunities = many questions :-)

Not sure how to feel about this, I love the Pi and it’s humble goal towards education. (I am 16 year old Aussie Kid who built a MAME cabinet & used the Pi to learn Linux – it has opened a new world for me).
In saying that, although the Pi has been used by makers and many enthusiast, seeing the RasPi been used purely for industrial applications is a bit worrying to me. Though maybe it allows the best of both worlds? In any case look forward to designing some PCB’s and using it :)

No matter how humble your goals are, if you’re going to follow through on them, you need money. This is a way for us to raise that money. All profits go straight to the Foundation: we use every penny sales raise to build more educational resources, donate more Pis to more schools, train more teachers and help more kids.

It’s also designed to allow the ‘maker in a shed’ with a great idea to access this technology cheaply. It is impossible to get hold of the silicon devices on this module unless you’re a ‘big guy’ who can buy very large volumes. We’re trying to give power to the ‘little guy’ to make cool stuff!

Fair Enough. In any sense, its good to see an open platform, driven by the community open up possibilities in commercial applications and possibly aspiring start-ups.

P.S. Personal Thank You – The RasPi platform has been a massive influence in learning about computers and electronics and has offered a new possible career path in computing. Plus my school has recently started a RasPi club which has been great fun too!

Problem will be the bandwith limitations of the raspi/CPU.
1.) Limitation on USB: how to get two streams out of the raspi where one is already filling up the line
2.) the GPU internal video processing units are also limited in bandwith and processing power. Not sure if this would compute all what’s possible with e.g. raspimjpeg for one camera module

All of this regarding good quality video. Reducing quality/fps should help (but it was a littly bit pitty when having such a nice cam module).

Does the new form factor imply that we’ll be seeing newer computes with the same pin outs that will be compatible with the IO module to provide more cores/faster processors/more RAM? Get the feeling that we’re witnessing the birth of the AT form factor in miniature all over again :-)

The trouble is each SoC has a slightly different set of interfaces, pin muxing rules and so-on. So having designed a module arround the interfaces available on one SoC it’s very hard to make a compatible module around a different one.

“Get the feeling that we’re witnessing the birth of the AT form factor in miniature all over again”

Not really. The idea to put a computing module on a form factor like this is quite old. There are quasi standards out there for more than a decade now. Take a look at the KuK ARM modules at http://www.keith-koep.com. Their initial pinout was copied many times by companies like Toradex or DH…

Just curious if you guys had any idea how much cheaper the module could become if it had less flash storage (maybe 128-256MB)? For most embedded systems, 4GB seems pretty over-the-top. Only a few years ago, most of us who did “embedded linux” had to work within 16-64MB, and even applications with a heavy graphic component like OpenELEC could live comfortably in 256M. I understand that flash is cheap nowadays, though, so the savings might be a lot less than I’d expect.

I would rephrase the question as “Just curious if you guys had any idea how much cheaper the module could become if it had _NO_ flash storage?”

From schematics it looks like there is no 8bit emmc interface (so it won’t be faster than SD card) and sadly those pins are not(?) brought to the connector so no possibility of cheaper “mode A” with emmc not soldered :-(

With new GPIOs being brought out when will we be able to know what functions can be used on each GPIO? Would love to start working on a baseboard for a project but need to know what can be used for what functions.

All the GPIO functions ARE already in the existing datasheet. It was just thus far not possible to use many of them as they where not brought out. Look at the second, beautiful designed SPI interface which is now available. They guy who designed that must be a genius. :-) :ugeek: :-)

Nice board. Honestly though I think you missed the mark here if your goal is the industrial market. Well at least the market I’m interested in. Here we want the I/O but we also want high quality connections to that I/O!

Consider here the engineer that needs a one off solution or a very limited quantity of solutions. Designing an interface board will never happen.

That being said I see a real opportunity here for a well designed mother board for this module. A board with real RS232 ports, 24 VDC tolerant I/O, a power supply and other goodies. If the cost is reasonable it could drive success for this product.

You can design what you need using free PCB design tools (KiCad, etc.) and you can have a PCB made for crazy cheap prices these days, for example $25 can get you 10 pieces of 10 cm x 10 cm 2-layer board from iteadstudio.com Not much barrier to entry there, so if you don’t want to do it yourself, maybe someone will see the opportunity and provide a solution for you.

Will there ever be a larger board to host more than one of those compute units (would be a nice and small cluster )?? Also it would be nice with an ethernet port. I really like the small “Ram” like design of the module!!

That is the trick of the module: maybe. Anybody can now design a ‘carrier’ board which holds up to X raspberry-Pis. We just have to wait and see what appears in the next few days.
It is nice that the announcement is ahead of the actual availability. This gives time to have plug-in boards available by the time the module comes out.

When I played around with my cluster of 4 Raspis I saw that the USB-connected Ethernet is a real bottleneck.

I want to have a PCB that connects say 8 of them in a way that appears as a switched Ethernet connection and that makes them available via an external Ethernet jack (or even a little switch to cascade them) to have a real cluster.

It could even be a PCI or PCIe card so we would have a Plug-In-Cluster for our PC!

Our internal testing shows it is definitely at the upper end of the speed scale. eMMC is also specifically designed and optimised for embedded filesystems.
Difficult to compare to a class 10 SD card as all SD cards speed are dependent on the internal Flash controller implementation (note that some class 10 cards are in fact slower than lower class cards when used in a Pi as they are only optimised for large streaming writes – perfect for your camcorder, not so good for a filesystem which has lots of small random reads).

If someone creates a board to plug 100 of these in afford-ably, with proper power supply and decent port selection of course, $300 would be 70GHz of arm processing power and 50GB of RAM. Even if the board and power supply cost $200 it would be a nice $500 server with some fun Linux parallel processing power. Not to mention 3D GPU/Video Transcoding power. Can’t wait to see what people do. Scalable Plex server is on my “crazy idea” wish list.

… and a board(s) to support 100 units might be a bit more complex than $200 worth, too. That adds up to quite a bit of power to move around – why almost as much as an x86 uses! – and a lot of sodium sockets. But it’s the way we need to go to get real performance improvements. Serious parallelism has to become mainstream; a few cores sharing one memory just isn’t going to cut it.

If you’re looking for high-performance and maximum MIPS/dollar (or pound), you’re going to have an awfully hard time beating a mid-range x86 board. I think the point of RaspberryPi is just the opposite (you only get a fraction of the performance, but you can actually cheaply buy a fraction the MIPS of an i7 for a fraction of the price (which is perfect for things that don’t need a lot of raw performance, of which there are many).

We’ll have a statement about it in due course (probably when sales start), but that’ll say at a very minimum that it’ll be available for five years. I’d be interested in feedback on what sort of long-term availability you guys would be interested in.

And, of course, we are not limiting these to n units per customer: you can buy as many as you like.

to be honest: 5 years is nothing in industrial use. 5 years is the absolute bare minimum.

Think about it. Somebody starts building a device this years using that module. Including all required qualifications for industrial use, the device will be ready to sell next year. The device then is used within a greater system. The system design can start earliest with system design +1 year. Again, until the complete system is available including all qualifications, will be minimum 1 year. So we are at +2 years. That means, the module will now be available only 3 years left. That is best case scenario. Not even counting servicing for the final system that in industrial use will run minimum 10 years.
Parts availability of 5 years in industrial use is not long term. That is short term.

This comes to the other requirements: what is about qualifications: shock, temperature, EMI?
What is with type E1 qualification, which is required in automotive use?
What is about extended temperature, like it is required in mobile applications, railway or even stuff like ticketing stations (-40°C)?

The current Raspberry PI has none of these. Especially, the design in terms of EMI requirements is far from industrial use. “Friends” use the current Raspberry PI for pre-prototyping in terms of validating ideas. But when it comes to real prototyping, then everybody is doing its own design.

Nice work. I started dreaming of specialized breakout boxes and also Pi foundation to start offering of server (or simply more beefed-up) Pi’s (DualCore SoC and 1GB of RAM is enough to make the difference, along with 1Gbps LAN and at least one SATA port).

Maybe I’m missing something, but wouldn’t this be a good form factor for schools as well? As it stands, one of the barriers keeping me from embracing the pi at y school is the nightmare I imagine would ensue when the kids get to class and all have to plug in five or six connectors to get their Pis running. This makes me imagine a relatively dumb and cheapish “dock” that stays set up (potentially both at school and at home, or even in multiple rooms within the school) and a Rasperry pi in roughly the same form factor as an old NES cartridge. I know the docks would have to implement networking and usb, and the total would be more expensive than the Pi is now– but as an educational technologist, I feel that long setup time is the number one factor that stops adoption of new technologies in schools.

Minor gripe, the 3 & 4th page in the PDF of the schematic for the CM is slightly cropped, not a big deal as I don’t think there is any missing data. More of just a FYI. Great job, and looks great! Look forward to getting my hands on a pair of CM/CMIO boards.

WOW, I cant wait to get my hands on one (or more) of these beauties. Might be worth looking into making an expansion board for arcade (and similar) controls. So, roughly how many addressable GPIO pins are there?
I can see on the IO board, there are 120 physical pins, and on the module itself, there are 200 pins. But i’m guessing a pile of these are used by default for hdmi/video out/audio/usb/CSI and DSI
I’d also imagine that there are still the standard power (3.3v and 5v) and ground pins?
I’m just wondering how many of the 200 I’ll be able to use as standard IO pins, and will existing code (such as the python gpio module) work with them or not?

There are 46 free GPIOs to do whatever you like with. They can be used as general I/O or configured as I2C/SPI/PCM/UART/PWM/GPCLKs etc like the (more limited) subset on the Pi. (More docs on this in the coming days).

46??? thats amazing. I wonder if PiKeyed will be able to work with them all :D

I’ve been wanting to make an arcade cabinet with my pi for ages, but there arnt enough gpio pins for all the controls I wanted (2 joysticks, 12 buttons, plus some extra buttons) but there are on here :D :D :D :D

I’m going to end up with a few of these, Might even replace my current one (hosting my website) for a couple to run my site, and web server on one :D

Hardware on two. But somebody wrote a very reliable SW PWM package for the other pins. I think it uses DMA. If so it will not suffer from Linux task switching/interrupts hick-ups. I am sure somebody can provide a link to the forum posts about that.

Oh, WICKED!
Almost pased out when I looked at the schematics – shed-loads of lovely jubbly connections!
Seriously, I believe this’ll be a big boost for the Raspberry Pi foundation – especially if the undoubtedly numerous spin-off boards donate a portion of profits to the Foundation, as a lot of vendors are doing currently.
I’m trying to use a couple of Pi’s for a remote forest/env. monitoring thingy.
If someone sticks an Arduino-type Atmel 328 whatsit on a board to interface to it and give it some analog, and an RTC (SleepyPi, nudge, nudge) this’ll be a real treat. Plus, luuuve the power consumption (GPU unused – not many HDMI displays in forests.) Looks like 1Watt or so can be acheived easily. My solar panels and batteries just became:
Cheaper
Smaller
Less visible, therefore less nickable.

This news just really made my days.
The update of my beloved Raspberry Pi

I’m a college student from Indonesia who doesn’t really understand about anything related to Computer.
But Raspberry Pi teach me a lot about programming, embedded system, robotics, electronics, etc.
And make me get scholarship for full time master program at my campus.
So Thank You for you guys at the Raspberry Pi foundation for making this awesome Thing.

The arduino is aimed at people who can’t/won’t handle putting an avr on their own board and programming it.

The raspberry pi compute module is aimed at people who have moderate PCB design and assembly resources available but don’t have the resources (or can’t justify using them) to deal with a SoC comparable to the one on the Pi.

Designing and building a board to support an AVR is going to be considerablly easier than designing and building a board to support the raspberry pi compute module.

If you write paralel and distributed code then theoretically yes – but still note that GPU computation is mostly available for nVidia via CUDA and other via OpenCL. Maybe the open Broadcom code allows good OpenCL integration, but for anything advanced – nVidia wins.

This seems like a very smart move, and I imagine it will really help grow the platform further (although it’s already huge!) – in fact I think this is going to start an avalanche of creative responses – congratulations!

One question I haven’t seen an answer to tho’ – are the compute modules and IO boards going to be made in Wales?

This announcement comes at a crucial time for me (great timing folks ;) ) as I was about to order some large(-ish) Arduino’s for an upcoming project as I need some more IO then what the standard RPi can give me (even with multiplexing). But now you’ve made this public, all options are back up in the air! (insert desperately-raising-of-hands-to-heaven smiley here)

I understand the $30 quoted is for the compute module alone, what’s the target price for the expander/IO board and the Development Kit combo? If not too dear, I’d consider purchasing 5-10 of the latter ;-)

Many thanks for releasing this guys, I’m sure you’d be making a whole lot of (small) manufacturers happy :-D

I think there are a couple people who are waiting for the schematics documentation – pin assignments on the module, etc. There is very likely some interest in designing custom boards, placing 5+ or 50+ of these into the same “compute board”.

Brilliant! I don’t think this will replace the one stop shop that is the Model B though. ( I do hope you wont stop production of the Model B). This form factor suggests to me that future model D etc boards will include more variety of processing power and storage upgrades etc that may be able to take advantage of IO modules that others develop. IO boards themselves are not trivial for the ordinary user to make for home experimentation.

Definitely a “TAKE MY MONEY!” kind of moment. I would like to see the host board have an option for a standard 2.1mm power jack even if it isn’t soldered on the board by default. (same for the raspberry pi really… I get the micro usb thing, but it is still not great for an industrial setting)

Fantasitc! I’ve been planning to make my own custom board with a Freescale i.MX233 + 64MB RAM + MicroSD + sensors and stuff (no BGA’s) to make a computer to wear on my arm. This looks like it could be a much better idea. Looking forward to get my hands on a few of these.

I do have one request though regarding the IO board. Please consider replacing the 0.1″ male headers with 0.1″ female headers. This will make the IO board easier to use in hardware interfacing projects.

The original RPi board had 0.1″ male connectors but could easily be interfaced to a breadboard with IDC connector/header cable due to its reasonably sized 2×13 header. The I/O board however brings out way more I/O. With this much I/O, in my humble opinion; female headers are better.

I know the pin assignments are different, BUT if there was a version of this module with DDR compatible pin assignments and it exposed, 1GB of DDR memory… basically , a shared memory interface with a PC host…

Instead of an initial MOQ to channel order volume, isnt there something more Pi-user-friendly, more in touch with the grass-roots Pi-movement ? Add a couple dollars initially, but don’t alienate me (and so many others) pls.

The point is that this product is aimed squarely at the embedded market – not the home user (although you can obviously still buy them if it suits your purposes) – and those guys are more interested in quantity discounts!

So with two camera ports I guess we can attach a regular camera module too one of them and then a noir to the other and the sotware could switch when low light is detected. 24hr monitoring system all one sweet form factor.

Does this sound reasonable?

PS. I have to say. I have been in the IT industry for 23yrs, and unfortunately it has all been MS based.

The raspberry pi has taught even and old duffer like me linux and I recently replaced my woefully underused and overpriced windows server with a LAMP server.

I have to say a big thank you to you all for all your efforts.

PPS Are you going to be present at the Bay Area Maker Faire again this year?

When the PiNoIR was first announced, people were talking about simply using a servo to move an IR filter in front of the lens, so that the same noIR camera could be used both for day-time (with the filter) and night-time (without the filter).

I had the same thoughts, a cheap powerfull SoC module with plenty of RAM, graphical capabilities and a large open source communisty is very interesting for many applications.

The 1.8V SODIMM socket is very cheap and in good supply from many vendors, also because of the light weight of the module you don’t need any additional mechanical fixations for most applications. Most applications that don’t need all the I/O’s can be implementen on a 4 layer PCB, just make sure you select the correct layer build up for the controlled impedance traces like HDMI, USB and camera interface.

Looks like an ok product but one frustration people have been having with the Pi is that for some applications it s just that bit too underpowered.

Is there any chance that we could see an upgraded pi hit the shelves with perhaps a dual core arm compatible processor? The Pi is now a couple of years ago so hopefully processor costs have dropped an an upgrade could be economically feasible. Its would make the desktop experience smoother and open the door for slightly more demanding applications such as software defined radio.

There are other embedded modules available that have more powerfull processors but they cost more than RP. For SDR a dedicated DSP and high speed ADC would be my prefered option, you could then use the RP for the GUI.

What he wants is not doable with Broadcom SoC on Raspberry Pi. It can’t have USB3/GigE and few other things from that list. It would have to be one of low power Inte/AMD CPUs or one of latest full blown ARM SoCs.

The module has two mounting holes for additional stability. Without the use of additional bolds it depends largely on the quality of the socket clamps you use on your board. There are sockets available that have very good mechanical clamps.

– will it be possible to boot operating system from an other source then the inbuilded memory?

– is a separate audio-out – connector on the board available?
– would it be possible to implement a sata-connector
on the board? if we have such a connect, then we can easy connect a ssd-drive and memory is no more a problem.

this is cool!!!
would be really nice to see boards with slots for multiple of these modules (since they are so small, you could probably fit 128 or more into a 1u chassis and have a nice and powerful cluster.

I wish I could see the day where I could build a compact cluster of Raspberry Pi…Oh wait! We can now!

More seriously, I’m giving away my idea since I’m not familliar with board development. Let’s create a board with an integrated network of some kind and multiple vertical conectors so we can connect say 10 RPi together. Then all you need is a power connector, a network connector and there you have it a compact RPi cluster

I just had a rough look around on how to achieve network capability and this is what I came up with:
Use a Micrel KS8999 9 port hub IC (one port for the uplink) and individual USB-to-Ethernet ICs for each Pi module. The Hub chip is about 20$ a piece, the USB-to-ethernet start at about 3$.
Add some power supply stuff and the connectors and PCB and you’ll probably end up at around 100$ for the 8-Module baseboard.

Super stuff. One question though, it says in the article that it’s aimed at business and “industrial” users. Does that mean that the operating temperature range of the module is going to be somewhere around -40 to 100 degrees centigrade?

I did not think about this when I first read the article, but now that I read through it again, I am reminded of my very first computer. It was an S-100 Bus computer. The basis was what they called a motherboard, but what was really a place to connect your power supply and was essentially a back plane for the signals to travel from one card to another. I had an 8 slot backplane and I had five or six cards that went into there.
One was a Front Panel with flashing LEDS and switches.
One was the Z-80 CPU card.
One was the RAM card – I had a whopping 64K (yes kilo) of RAM.
One was an I/O card which I connected to my TV-Typewriter.
One was the Floppy controller card. I had 1 8″ floppy and 2 5 1/4 inch floppies.
One was a real-time clock. It used a whole wire wrap board but something that took only about 1 square inches.

I wonder if we might see something like that with this new Raspberry Pi Compute Module.

Probably not. Electronics have shrunk considerably since the mid 1970’s.

I think this is a good design. I just wish it were sold in single unit lots. I do not really need 100 and I would buy at least one to say I had one.

I am totally agree with you. I feel the same way, we are getting very basic and small system that can be fit into small integration. So why not a small pi than RAM slot with mother?I thought next pi will be like.
– Duel core
– More ram(maybe)
– wifi module
– on board MMC
– more gpio (new has)
Anyway, keep develop and hope we will see something more small and powerful.

You as in raspberry pi foundation started the raspberry pi crazy very good. First make something everybody likes, tries, understands and is supported. Then carry on with the more advanced understanding of prototyping, Like: reading more difficult schematics, drawing your own schematics and building your own raspberry pi i/o board with it’s own demands. Carry on you have my respect as hobbyist

This is perfect for my idea to create a laptop/netbook with the raspberry pi! create a simple 15.4 inch screen laptop with raspberry pi at it’s core, built in usb hub to power everything, and just take the rpi and everything with you!

Not a real step forward, just to compete with solutions already there.
For instance: I have such a DIMM module, also needing a motherboard. But it comes in addition to the ARM SoC also with a large FPGA. More flexible, more powerful, more interfaces on motherboard.
Example: XynergyXS

Is the DIMM module compatible with other similar modules? I do not guess. Where is the benefit to go with such a solution? Similar solutions allow to use different types of DIMM modules with SoC on it.

The small benefit I see: the flash device. The SD card was quite flaky and not very reliable. Question would be: how can the flash device be programmed, assuming just through the RPi which has to stay alive (protected bootloader).
It is more costly, less flexible (think about to reuse existing extension boards)

Are there additional features on the motherboard such as:
micro-SD card, bluetooth, WiFi, CAN, POE and dedicated I2S or SPI headers? The pictures does not let me assume.

It it the same, “old” RPi SoC or a new one (quad core)?
Is the VC4 (graphic engine) open now to be used by customers?
Where is the benefit to make it larger with the motherboard?

This is an addition to the Raspi A and B, it doesn’t replace either of them. The A/B is still the major product from the Foundation – this is just for embedded/industrial uses rather than education. But the income stream from it WILL be ploughed back in to education.

It reminds me of the TRAM modules built with Transputer chips. this Compute Module can give us cheap and efficient massive parallelism, but now with more standards based components? Who wants to join me in a project trying this out?

Funnily enough I was thinking Transputers & TRAM modules myself when I first saw this… I’m contemplating a module or motherboard that allows these modules to be easily connected together much like an array of transputers was able to be connected together via it’s network of dedicated inter processor links. In this case these links would probably have to be USB or Ethernet. Unfortunately, only having one USB port limits the overall inter-processor bandwidth somewhat but it’s still feels do-able… Generally though, I think the posibilities are endless – hats off to the Raspberry Pi guys for coming up with this!

I suggest Ethernet, especially when the backplane can support switching. The setup would be like the work done here, but then built somewhat more efficient using a backplane instead of all the cables. Programming it would be the major concern, I think.

Sorry, I need to come back on that one. This board only supports the BCM2835 and a flash memory card. No Ethernet there so I do not think there is Ethernet on the pinout. There is only USB, UART or SPI to communicate with. That complicates it a little.

When I mentioned ethernet I made the assumption that whis would be via the usual LAN9512 USB-10/100 Ethernet bridge.

But… thinking along the USB solution lines – it could be possible to create a shared memory function over USB with (say) four USB ports allowing four Raspberry Pi Compute modules to communicate via a shared memory array. And there’s no real limit on how big that memory module can be… Just a thought… You could also use SPI and / or simple RX/TX for lower bandwidth inter-module communications – depending on requirements.

I considered not letting this post through since it is somewhat lacking in, well, you can see.

But then realised the poster has COMPLETELY misunderstood, so needs some help. And we like to help here, despite the way the post is phrased.

One the the major points about this compute module is that it’s NOT a BGA connector. It’s on an easy to buy and use SODIMM connector. No BGA at all if you consider it as a monolithic unit. The other major related point is that you cannot buy the Bcm2835 in small quantities. Well, you can now – on this compute board! Two birds with one stone! Hurrah!

It doesn’t have one. It’s designed to be plugged in to a motherboard that will supply whatever peripherals are required for the particular use case. Lots of industrial/embedded applications may not need an ethernet port…

There has never been an Ethernet Port attached to the BCM2835 SoC, it is on the USB Bus and uses a LAN9512 Chipset on the Model B to offer a RJ45 Port. So in effect it is no different than using a USB RJ45 Dongle

I agree ethernet is very often required, but since the USB to ethernet chip (LAN9512) adds extra cost and complexity to the module, leaving it out starts to make sense to me. Only the USB data lines are available, hooking it up to the LAN9512 gives you ethernet and 2 USB channels. It makes sense because you only need the differential USB signal and can split it up in the required functionality on your application specific mother board.

One thing worth noting here is that not everyone needs or uses ‘wired’ ethernet. Wireless ethernet is very easily added to anything with USB with a USB-WiFi ‘dongle’ and wifi is becoming more and more popular.

There could be several options for a base-board here:

1) Put a LAN9512 down to get wired ethernet plus two USB channels;
2) Just use a single USB channel with single connector if that’s all that the application required;
3) Put down your own USB hub on the baseboard and get as many USB ports as you need, including a LAN9512 & ethernet socket if needed;
4) Put USB straight into your own application, say an FPGA with USB port or one of the countless other USB I.Cs available – no socket required which helps keeps the cost down.

By doing it this way, the cost of the module has been kept as low as possible while leaving the more detailed design up to the application design. Great thinking R’Pi! I see a ***lot*** of designs for carrier boards coming along very soon!

Seems there are still limited options for display connection. It seems for embedded devices that drive a pretty standard and cheap mid sized TFT panel with 18 or 24 pin RGB connections are not catered for with this Broadcom chip (unless I’m mis-reading the spec wrong). DSI is complex for low volume solutions and HDMI mostly inappropriate (expensive / overkill) for embedded.

Anyone got any ideas about how to connect a garden variety $20 4.3″ TFT RGB panel to this?

There are enough GPIO lines, however it seems you would need to write a DPI driver so still a lot of work but in theory easier than DSI (would be nice if the upcoming pi DSI display was available in smaller sizes).

I agree with your comments though, lack of a parallel RGB LCD interface is pretty much a deal breaker for me. Still, I sincerely applaud the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the work they do to spur innovation and affordable access to technology. You never know, maybe as a result of this product another player in this market will design a similar module at a competitive price point that does have the RGB interface. Unfortunately most of them out there now are min 1K quantity and up to get a decent price.

From what I understand this new device has 512mb RAM as does the model B. Is it reasonable to expect that the model A will soon ship with 512mb in order to synchronize the product line? I can’t imagine this would increase the power consumption of the model A by a significant amount, however, it would help prevent frustration when designing software and course projects to be used on both systems.

This is a really great way to fulfill the needs of developers who have taken the Pi in an unexpected direction of usage, hats off to the RPF for finding another revenue stream which will help future funding.

On a very sad, note despite numerous posts to the contrary, people still expect a ARMv7 SoC and diss the RPF not offering this product.

The BCM2835 has been around for many years and look forward to it still being usable in 2020.

Whoa. Talk about slamming on the brakes, which is what I just did. (Screeching tires Hollywood-style come to mind)

I’m designing an industrial product literally right now. My schematic capture is on my screen to the right from this box. We did the proof-of-concept with RPis. But as the RPi integrates poorly, not to mention clumsily, we – reluctantly – started putting together our own SoC system. Lots of complexity and risk we really don’t need right now.

And although we usually are really polite and patient around these quarters, things suddenly became here today a cage of starving lions being teased with a 50-pound lump of dripping meat dangling overhead just an inch beyond our reach.

I cannot help wondering who we would have to kidnap to get hold of that sample used to take the pictures? :)

Please. Make it available as soon as possible. Without requiring the assistance of Sicilian “consultants” :)

I see how it can be of use to those building the RPi into their own projects, but this concept could also be used to stack thousands of RPis into a space the size of a server rack for some serious parallel computing power.
However I’m not sure making the connector a push-down-parallel-to-mainboard type is going to help that possibility, surely stacked together like desktop PC RAM at 90 degrees would be a better way?

A custom expansion board (needed for even a low volume commercial project) is still going to be a 4 layer job – this isnt laser printer PCBs in the back bedroom stuff. Roku aren’t going to be buying these by the million for their products – but smaller companies will love them in the 100s and lowe 1000s. What is needed is to make the journey to finished product – via a custom I/O board – as simple as possible. How about:

1) A register of people/ companies who can help design ‘my product PCB with connectors x,y and z, dimensions a,b’
2) A dedicated area (on the forums?) where people can similarly contribute, anonymously if needed?
3) Some support on the third party bits (machines enclosures, CE marking etc) that will get these boards in products to market.

If you are going to take market share off the existing (overpriced!) ‘controller in a box’ people, this is what I believe you need.

I have a product, already in use in the field, using standard Pi boards (and yes I do have sleepless SD card based nightmares!)… we don’t have PCB design skills in house, but would be happy to pay to get a board done to build volume in what we are doing – TODAY please :-)

According to the peripherals datasheet, the BCM2835 only has two UARTs.
You could obviously have a lot more using standard GPIO pins if you were willing to bit-bang them in software at a much lower data rate.

Looks fantastic – especially the fact that the I/O board has two camera inputs… One slight… gripe? request? preference? – the I/O board _needs_ an ethernet connector, or at least space for a network connector and associated electronics to be connected – even if tit comes as a can-be-added-later module.

It’s probably too late to add it to this build, but please consider it for any revision…

I want to know why on this board we do not have a option to add a extra of upgrade memory. I love the PI and how it looks but if you can add a extra memory bay this will give users upgrade feats over time.

just think if we could stick a 8GB DDR2 or DDR3 in the pi and have it running. now this can be a upgrade you don’t even need 8GB u can just use a stick of old ram laying around. i have a few 4GB DDR2 / DDR3 just sticking around.

I really don’t know if that idea is possible just a great idea and would love to see if it could be done.
like really how much can a extra memory slot cost.

Sigh. Some time ago I was practically burned at the stake when I suggested that it would be nice to see the Pi redesigned into ‘a long, thin shape with all the connections down the same edge’ to make it easier for hobbyists and industrial users to put it into an application – specific enclosure.

I like the module approach. Now that the Pi is made up of two parts, hardware development can progress on each in parallel with potential upgrading in the future perhaps?
What would be good to see in the future is

This way it could still be used as a mini-headless-PC. MiniSD card offers a very practical way of dealing with a Pi’s OS and data keeping it tiny and neat as it has been. A memory bump would be a good-to-have these days too, especially due a new Java embedded version being release which a quite a large memory footprint.

By the looks of it this version is target more towards engineers wanting to interface with hardware, which is still cool.

Did the Raspberry foundation give up on making the Pi more available for third world countries? I see a lot of work going into performance, better graphics with the VideoCore IV, Wolfson Audio Card etc which I’m all for because I believe it’s the petri dish for the future awesome little device. But how about making pi more accessible to third world countries?

I’m from Kenya and the cheapest computer one can possibly get will run you well over $350. I thought about reselling the Pi in my country as a cheap option computer, complete with Khan On A Stick, LibreOffice and many other basic student open source software. When I put the $25 computer together, it ran well over $80. With all the basic USB peripherals the Pi needs, on a 7 port Amazonbasics was full! WiFi, Keyboard, Mouse, 3G module(limited access to cable in Kenya, much better 3g connection), bluetooth, USB sound and the PI’s own power. And did I mention that this $25 computer needed a $20 powered USB hub to run properly? Then the complexity, 3 devices(pi, usb hub full pf peripherals, and the 3g module) and the wires everywhere alarmed me that the PI was not really meant to be a computer.

How about this for an idea.

Something Raspberry Pi Compute Module plugs in that turns it into a full computer with all the necessary components on board. All Raspberry Pi’s could use on-board WiFi and if possible Wifi Direct, Bluetooth for wireless keyboard Mice, Quality sound and about 4 powered USB ports, vga, RCA, HDMI output and 4A power supply. For my case also a 3g/4g module. And keep it under $40? A $70 dollar mini computer that’s ready to go?

With all these geniuses tinkering with the Pi, can someone come to the rescue?

Hardware feasible yes, to almost all points I think, but cost feasible nt.
If price is important why do you want to use a bluetooth keyboard? They cost about 6 times the price of a USB one at trade prices.

I probably should have left out the Bluetooth part because the the two replies seem to ignore the part where I included the 4 USB ports, then knock the idea for not being cost feasible based on the price of Bluetooth keyboards alone. I think Bluetooth keyboard it’s a nice thing to have, but you don’t have to use it.

There was a discussion a while back that I remember people asking for wifi and bluetooth being added into the raspberry pi A/B/C, but they explained there that it was possible to do, but due to the liscensing costs, FCC costs, extra parts, etc, it would cost much more than most people were willing to really pay and would have killed the 35 dollar limit that they were going for.

Even now, the liscensing and fees pertaining to including wifi and various wireless mediums are far too expensive and too much of a headache to really bother with when people can just plug a cheap usb module in.

@James Hughes
I was looking at photo and doesn’t come with 10 pins socket.
And i was looking at video that come with 10 pins socket.
But how comes!!!!!! (-:
Do you have certified that everything is comes with or not?

This would be quite ideal for my current useless sideproject..
(You know, the kind of project you do in CS classes that cover stuff you learned a decade ago).
It is kind of a crossover between a media player and general tinkering tool for nerds.
Planned interfaces include 2*Ethernet, USB, WLAN, bluetooth, some general purpose ISM band radios.
At the moment i am designing around a Carambola 2, but that just doesn’t have IO for everything i’d like (And not enough RAM for many applications).
–Martin

I wonder if some of these new lines of GPIO support EINT (set edge triggering to rising, falling, or both to poll GPIO). Currently when I need interrupt support (to not load CPU) I go to A10 ARM v7 with my kernel module for sample.

There will be lots of Raspberry Pi compatible mother board on the market.
So, it would be exciting if this ‘Raspberry Pi compatible DDR2 SODIMM connector’ becomes a standard core/mother interface for other core boards with more powerful SoC.

Actually, it is possible to make CM compatible devices with other SoC’s on. Some pins won’t be useful depending on the SoC, but there should be enough commonality to have different SoC’s (In fact, I working on a project that relies on this!)

Thanks for such a brilliant design, I’ve been waking this week up at 5a.m. or earlier thinking up I/O board designs!
“The Compute Module IO Board is a simple, open-source breakout board”
Will you be making the IO Board design available in an editable format?
If yes, what format: Eagle, DesignSpark…?
and if yes any idea when?
I don’t want to spend most of next week replicating your work if I don’t need to!

These are just examples, and I’m sure there are various reasons why they were not chosen (too expensive, no public specs available, connectors hard to source, etc.) but having another competing standard doesn’t really help much. I’d be interested in the reason why improv wasn’t chosen, it looks like it could be a good standard for interoperability between CPU modules and carrier boards

Would be interesting to know is any of those standards support twin CSI-2 cameras, DSI displays etc. The CM pinout was designed around the SoC, rather than having to shoehorn the SoC into another format, which may well have been impossible givent eh requirements to support all the SoC features. Otherwise it would have been a pointless exercise – the aim is to get the SoC in to the embedded market, where previously it has penetration only as part of a Raspi itself.

Reading into it, “improv” itself isn’t a standard, but just an implementation of the EOMA68 standard which it’d be impossible for the compute module to implement without adding a whole bunch of extra components (it lists RGB/TTL as a requirement, which the BCM2835 doesn’t offer), and adding a whole bunch of extra components would defeat the whole purpose of the low-cost compute module. EOMA68 also has only 8 GPIO pins…

I think a Raspberry Pi with only a header would be a great idea also for schools. Then you would have all connectors on another board connected to the header on the Pi. The advantage of this is that the processor board will be cheaper, since the connectors for HDMI, composite video, USB, stereo sound etc cost. Now if the Pi-processor is destroyed in an experiment using e.g. LEDs, you only have to buy a new processor board, but can use the old connector-board with it. Is it possible to change the eMMC separately? If not, I do think it’s a mistake to have the eMMC (SD card) soldered on since it can break due to faulty software and then you need to recycle also the CPU and RAM. Also, I need at least 8GB Flash for Raspbian and applications and this Flash-memory need will probably increase in the future.

I’ve been thinking of doing a BrewPi setup with the RPi-B, anyone know if a PCB will be designed to streamline this with the compute? Possibly including a microprocessor to be a “failsafe” if the Pi should crash, the program continues to run at last setting, thus not ruining the Beer in temp controlled fermentation.

Sorry if I am throwing incorrect terms out there I’m still learning and only dabbling in the idea for fermentation control and data logging, without great power consumption like a PC.

This new product looks very exciting! But i’d be interested to know why the cost is still roughly the same as the original Raspberry Pis, when so many components have been removed?

It’s great that this adds flexibility for a business user to create their own PCB, but surely the point is that they can then keep costs down by only adding the peripherals they need? If it is just that the connectors for the model B version only amount to $5, then fair enough, but I would have thought more than that would be saved by the amount of stripping back that has been done.

Good Night.
I believe that mentors the project, should consider having different versions of the module. For example depending on the use of IP, it would be interesting to have versions with 4Gbyte eMMC, 8Gbyte eMMC and out there. I personally eagerly awaiting a version of 1GB RAM for PI.

This is brilliant! You should create a kind of removable SoC, so that you can replace it with more powerful alternatives. Also, maybe a 1GB RAM option – my Pi has run out of memory on numerous occasions.

You have obviously skipped a whole page of reading posts, beceuse what you want is not going to happen. There are other products at a far higher price and less community support which will have the features you crave / want / desire

You really don’t need more than 512 in embedded applications, and in effect, this board IS just a SoC (with a couple of bit added on).

Of course, it is possible to have a ball grid array socket for SoC’s like this. They cost about £1000 each….so a bit out of the normal Raspi price range! And of course, all SoC have different pin outs.

Having been away and come back, by the time I got to the bottom of the the posts it would appear that the essence of the Blog has been lost. Apologies if regurgitating.

The Module is basically a BCM8235 SoC (this is the same as the A & B Pi’s and Broadcom do not manufacturer an equivelent ARMv6 SoC) with 512MB PoP Memory (at this presnt time a 1GB Memory is ‘feasible’ but not available commercially) and a 4GB eMMC Memory Chip. The BUS is bought out to a standard DDR2 SoDIMM edge connector

Therefore apart from adding a different capacity eMMC it is what it is. Therefore please just accept it is what it is !

The I/O Board is a Reference Design (I am sure time spent Googling would illicit what that means) for developers and not intended as a Consumer Product. Developers will manufacture I/O Boards so eventually a plethora of choices will be available as Consumer Products.

Please will people stop posting wants, after 2 years of Raspberry Pi’ing it is getting tedious………….

I have long applauded that you (the Foundation) have not come out with models D thru W just to fulfill every person’s wishes (“I want a Pi with XYZ on it”) and long appreciated that you’ve suffered myriad criticisms for all you have left out or put into the models A and B. Now with the compute module, everyone can build “exactly” what they want.

I am a bit baffled by the number of criticisms that this single component does not include exactly what everyone wants already. It’s *one* ingredient, people. Add what you want to it. If it’s not what you want, use something else.

Ah, the audiophile applications that are possible! No extraneous components, options for embedded DACs on the base board, properly implemented I2S to the DAC, Femto clocks on the base board, high quality connectors, linear power supplies…..

Gotta say this in my father tongue: ‘J’adore le Raspberry Pi’…..
Where I work here in South Africa, I’m the only guy that cares and knows about the Raspberry Pi, and this News, i mean this Awesome Good News on this post right here, will make my Geek Cred go up by an order of magnitude…. Now all i’ve got to do is go through the schematic reference designs, understand them… Then fire up my Electronic Design Tool, set up a new PCB project, lay down all other stuff that I know I’ll need…and then i’ll leave my laptop ON with this PCB Project window open until Jully or August when I get that ‘little nice thing’. It might even take longer before it reaches here…. But, it’ll be fine, i’ll be busy braging about my new design in the meantime :-)
And next year when I go back to Uni to upgrade my Diploma to a Degree, i’ll get a distinction for my final project…. I know it, i know
Thanks a lot, the RPF

I agree, it’s a disgrace! I built my own garage last year but then realised I’d overlooked the fact that Bellway had been making these suckers for years. They cost a lot more than my garage and had different features but I was so embarrassed at copying that I knocked it down.

Recently I made a robot. It was a lovely robot and fantastic value but you can imagine how I felt when I found out that Capek had invented robots in 1920 … albeit at a more expensive cost? I don’t think you can. I’m ashamed that I blatantly copied his idea and so you should be, Raspberry Pi Foundations so called brilliant people.

The Compute Module is great idea, and I applaude your endeavours to introduce the RPi to the industrial app world.

However, I have a suggestion — to go even lower on the RPi cost, what if you did a partial build of the “standard” RPi Model A (and/or Model B) board(s) without the various connectors mounted on the board (except keep the P1/GPIO, S1/Power, and S8/SD Card connectors still mounted).

The board(s) would go through a subset of the normal production steps (leaving off components), but add a step of applying no-solder zones to all the thru-hole connections (like you currently do with P2, P3, P5, & P6 thru-holes). [To save even more cost, you could also leave off the other components, that are only needed for the unused connectors.] Then the end user could mount only the connectors [and other missing components] he needed for his application, and at his expense.

Result: An even lower cost “industrial” RPi Model X (I’m guessing at least $5-$8 less than the “standard” Model A/B prices) — made on the same production lines as the “standard” RPi’s. Software development could be done with a “standard” RPi, and any add-on GPIO boards could still be utilized.

Too expensive to make random changes to a production line, and also have the added costs of the sales channel having to cope with it. Would make the Model A Minus even more expensive than the Model A. It almost always cheaper to have complete product rather than kit product.

I’m not suggesting a “kit product” with the unmounted, loose parts in a bag as part of “the kit”. I’m suggesting selling a complete board with many parts left off to reduce the cost. Then the end customer could choose to solder these parts on or not, at his added expense (and understanding he voids his warranty when he does).

In my experience of having many production PC boards made, it usually just requires a one-time setup change (to leave components off / add no-solder zones) to an existing production line sequence. Depending on the volume of “special” boards to be purchased, our PCB house usually waives the one-time engineering charges for such a change. Net result — a new board that costs $CostOfRemovedComponents less.

And concerning the Sales Channel, adding 1 or 2 new part numbers to a product line, that is already selling well, might actually increase total sales.

Talk it over with your production/sales people, I believe you will be pleasantly surprised!

Have a stroll through comments on other articles here (especially around the time we were launching back in 2012) or the forums and do a bit of a search – you’ll see why our production/sales people really *don’t* think that’s a workable idea.

This promises to be a brilliant piece of kit, and will doubtless prompt the development of a wide variety of CM-based boards designed for amateurs and for prototyping. Their level of ease of use and knowledge required will range from “plug in and go” to, perhaps, a level akin to the Arduino. On the other hand applying the CM itself evidently requires the level of knowledge of a professional electronics design engineer. Alas there are those who don’t seem to have grasped this.

Reading some (albeit a minority) of the questions posted in this forum I fear for your support guys. There are going to be people buying a bare CM without the first idea of how actually to apply it. The skill of designing a four layer PCB with controlled impedance lines will be way beyond their capabilities. Sadly some people who know little don’t appreciate how little they know.

I just bought my first rpi, (model B), and have to learn how to use it, but I appreciate the rpf’s effort- it’s made available the computer I’ve wanted for years: I’m almost surprised by thinking about the myriad possibilities of a Debian computer with real-world outputs!

Well, the compute modules is pretty small, but you need to have an IO board of some description to plug it in to, which will make it larger. How much larger depends on what you design on to your board.

We are proud to have launched a first Kickstarter project based on new Raspberry Pi Compute Module. We have created our own carrier-board, which has 4 full USB, Ehternet, HDMI, audio and GPIO connecters. Take a look at http://dock2office.com/raspberry-pi/

I see in the documentation that the module can be booted over USB. I am designing a unit to use this module and I want to include a USB Hub on board. Anyone know if the USB boot can work through a hub?

Are you saying you can get 100 of these for 30 dollars!?!
If so you should make a board that will have slots for 100 of them along with all the other jacks on a regular Raspberry Pi (Power [a lot of it], USB, ethernet etc.), So a super Pi could be made with them that works just like a regulur Raspberry Pi.

Like all the others slavishly waiting, I’m busy whiling away the time designing some goodies I just couldn’t crowbar the RPi into …. No matter how hard I tried there was always a bit sticking out …. On that point we know how long it is, how wide it is but can you tell us how thick it is? Or more like what is the highest component on the bottom side of the CM ….. Yip trying to work out the highest component that I can squeeze under an installed CM using a 6.5mm or 8mm stacking height DIMM connector ….. when you got to squeeze you have to squeeze :)

Nope, looking at the schematics the BCM2835 only has one SD interface – on the Model B it’s connected to the SD card slot, but on the compute module it’s connected (solely) to the eMMC chip.
So I guess any additional storage will have to be added via USB (e.g. a cheap USB flash drive or USB HDD).

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the advantages are to using raspberry pi to an engineer or ‘maker’ …. given I’m not really either. Are there advantages? Or at its core, is the value in providing or eventually providing access to the wonders of commuters at a ridiculously awesome price? Like, say I were an electric motor engineer… I have an electric skateboard but its outdated and its converter that smoothly regulates speed and converts the energy for the motor to use and connects via SUPER shitty bluetooth to a remote has a board in it. I’ve been told its set for lead acid batteries and that integrating anything with lithium ion batteries is as dangerous process but the motor is so rugged and simple. But from what I was told, whatever chip in there currently or board, can’t even handle lithium ion integration. So would someone mind comparing what might be in my skatebaord, given the above, to a raspberry pi compute model IO board? Which might be better or are they even comparable? Would a real electric engineer see value in using pi?

Also, its mentioned that you can connect multiple boards or chips to great more powerful and capable things… and I know you can add components but what’s the range? What if I want to add 2 MIDI ports… or 200? or 2 line-ins for audio…. or 100!…. and Am I right in thinking there’s awesome potential to use Raspberry PI for specific apps or software but only a single one? Like if all I need to do is run something that can run a VST like guitar rig, or massive or any fairly small Native-instrument software instrument, Pi would be awesome right? Like my monitor could power on and literally do and show one thing… the software instrument, and the card could have a MIDI in/MIDI out access.

Sorry… many questions. How powerful is Pi! How adaptable is it. Could is be used in a remote control car? in an instrument? Just trying to get a sense if this is Hardware’s version of hacking or if Pi is significant in the APParent maker movement movement… like that ;)

I am a real electrical engineer (the industrial automation variety) and I actually use the Raspberry PI to get things done. Specifically we use it to simulate a rather large piece of computer controlled equipment in the Oil and Gas industry called a Prover which is used to “prove” the flow of oil products down a pipe. A real prover accepts commands from a computer controller and sends feedback to the computer controller so that meter factors can be calculated. We use the Raspberry PI to simulate the prover when testing the computer controller on our desks before deploying the controller to the field. Since the Raspberry PI is so inexpensive and flexible and can simulate both the frequency of a flow meter and the pulsing of the prover it has been a great addition to our collection of in-house tools.

I am sure there will be other uses in the near future. It only needs to be imagined. Thanks to the Raspberry PI project team! You guys rock!

SERIOUSLY!!!! I’ve been following this damn thing for too long. THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WANTING IN THE PI SINCE… SINCE… SINCE A LONG TIME AGO! BAAAAAA I WANT THIS SOOOOO BADLY!!! please someone, something, some-any-what-have-yous give us a sign. I CAN’T TAKE THE WAITING!!

This thing will put the beaglebone Black to shame aaaAAAAHHH I WANT IT NOW!

While having an SO-DIMM System-on-a-Module is certainly not new, the new Pi will probably be the leader in cost for sure.

It’s primarily intended for small/midize industrial/commericial users who are happy to design their own breakout board with exactly what they need, while avoiding the issues of ordering the SoC in thousands and doing complicated layouts (like DDR memory).

It’s also intended for hobbyists and perhaps entrepreneurs (like myself) which I think is just as important (and the logical extension to) the primary education objective. This group of people are capable of designing their own PCB which are available quit affordably in small volumes now.

They problem is the board assembly. It doesn’t matter how simply my application is in terms of peripherals, you can’t really solder the SO-DIMM connector by hand, and getting an assembly house just to solder that one connector for you makes the cost become prohibitive immediately. This means if you need a custom I/O board, you’re still locked out the game simply because of the connection choice.

The idea is fantastic but I’m sure there are tons of people out there who don’t need ALL those GPIO and would have been happy if even a handful were available on some lower density connector that can be hand soldered thus making it viable for prototyping.

Because of the SO-DIMM connector, the assembly costs only become viable when you’re dealing with hundreds of boards which doesn’t help at the prototyping stage.

Perhaps the Foundation can make another bare-bones breakout board that is the SO-DIMM connector and just a rows of 0.1″ holes?

It really not *intended* for hobbiests but I am sure many will use them. As for industrial uses, it’s actually not that expensive to have a board made up that has the SODIMMM connector on. Would be cheaper than DIY.

Yes, the Raspberry Pi is a nice Board for a nice Price, but:
The ARM is very slow, you could get much faster multicore CPUs on other Boards for a better Performance/ Cost-Ratio.
For multinode Systems you are far better off with higher Performance Systems per Node, the RasPi would be nice to test and demonstrate something, but not very useful in a commercial context.
Software Support is not very good due to the old ARM-Core and the Support in the “Vanilla” Kernel is not the best. (Still…)
So this Module will be a nice thing for Controlling Appliances (Boiler, HVAC, Refrigerator…) or likely things. But there needs to be a better Software Support, some things in e.g. the Raspbian – Kernel are quite crumpy.

Wrong on many/all counts – you clearly do not work in the embedded device arena or know much about the device.

The Raspbian distro and the kernel it comes with is very robust. I’ve heard people say it’s much better and more solid than the other SBC boards out there running newer ARM’s It also has a lot of work being done on it, since there is a very large user base.

The 700Mhz ARM is actually quite powerful for an embedded device – they are usually much less capable. And the twin DSI ports are a real bonus, along with fast (accelerated) graphics that makes it an ideal fit for any embedded apps which need a GUI.

You really don’t need multinode systems in embedded devices, so not sure why you bring that up. Performance really isn’t that important for most embedded or industrial applications.

I´m talking about those People who are fantasizing about building home servers (or multi node Systems) with the Module.
(see top entries in this Discussion)
In the embedded world the module is very handy and even powerful enough for most applications.
About the DSI ports:
Is there any Documentation/ Code available yet which allows you to use the Ports? Because SPI could need some DMA or performance patching as it is painfully slow. (At least in relative Terms.)

The Foundation will be releasing some LCD screen that attach to the DSI2 ports very soon, all run from GPU so no performance impact on the ARM. I believe they are also trying to get the HW information released so people can use their own screens.

As for people wanting to make multi node devices, it’s well known that the device is not cost effective for this (price performance ratio is too high compared with a desktop)- that’s been stated since before release of the A or B! But, it does make for a very cheap multi node educational device.

the DIY and maker community with this can go even smaller in their home made devices.

Personally I like the idea of building a board for this to turn it into a router, providing a full operating system with more resources, so it can route better, and provide select service right on the device itself. Also I’m trying to imagine the clustering potential for this or for that matter why not have a ultra small router that’s also a small computing cluster.

Personally something I would love to see is an adaptor that would let me slot this in a PCI or PCI-E slot and some drivers for it that lets me share my PC’s resources(Hard disk and Ram) with this and allows remote desktop to talk with it. could have a system within my system running different kinds of tasks, perhaps maybe a custom Anti-Virus that’s isolated from the rest of the system.

If such an adaptor comes out for it I wanna know about it, put a little PC in my PC!

Hi, is there any news as to when we can expect shipments of the compute board please (inc cost). Separately interested if anyone knows and / or is starting a compute factory, i.e. help design PCB and manufacture. I do not currently have a supplier for this and would need one. Thanks